Literature Undergraduate Course Descriptions
Summer Session I 2025 (S125)
LTCH 101 - Readings in Contemporary Chinese Literature
Chinese Detective Stories: A Global Perspective
Proposed Instructor: Yuchen Yan
This course will examine crime narratives in China from literature and films since the imperial period, with a focus on the late 19th century to the contemporary period and see how they contribute to and intersect with different understandings of "modernity." Together, we are going to read from Judge Bao to Cheng Xiaoqing (known as "Conan Doyle" from China), from spy thrillers made in the 1950s such as Secret Blueprint (秘密图纸 1958) to recent crime noir exemplified by Black Coal, Thin Ice (白日焰火 2014). Meanwhile, this course also encourages students to think critically about the boundary between literary genres and how to embrace crime fiction in a non-Eurocentric way and develop a new global concept of crime fiction.
- LTCH 101 will count towards the Language (Chinese) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
- LTCH 101 will count towards the Region (Asia) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
LTCS 108 - Gender, Race, and Artificial Intelligence
(Cross-listed with CGS 108)
Proposed Instructor: Bradley Werner
Contact instructor for details.
LTCS 130 - Gender,Race/Ethn,Class&Culture
Testimonial Literature in Colonial and Contemporary Latin America
Proposed Instructor: Yingjie Fei
Written texts, intellectual discourse, and literary production have profoundly influenced the social fabric of Spanish America. The dynamics between writing power, and resistance have long shaped the region’s cultural and historical trajectory. The Spanish word testimonio literally translates as testimony which signifies the act of testifying or bearing witness. But the modern form of testimonio is not only a form of representation of popular ideologies and cultural forms; it is also a means of popular democratic cultural practice, closely bound up with the same motivations that produce insurgency at the economic and political levels. In this course, we will further investigate this connotation by closely reading colonial chronicles, travel narratives, religious confessions, and modern testimonios by Rigoberta Menchú, Colombian former guerrilleras, etc.
LTEA 142 - Korean Film, Literature, and Popular Culture
Gender, Sexuality, & Militarized Citizenship in 21st Century S. Korea
Proposed Instructor: Samuel Kim
Welcome to LTEA 142! In this course, we will examine how popular media portrays, adapts, reinforces, critiques, and challenges highly politicized notions of gender, sexuality, and citizenship in 21st-century South Korea. In conversation with diverse approaches to literary theory and cultural criticism, we will explore military-themed films and literatures across various genres including documentary, horror, romance, and fantasy which reveal profound connections between South Korea’s hyper-militarized culture and the gendered/sexed life courses of its citizenry. As we progress, we will contemplate the implications of these texts beyond the context of South Korean gender and sexual politics to develop critical outlooks that push the boundaries of gender and sexuality in this globalized moment.
- LTEA 142 will count towards the Media concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
- LTEA 142 will count towards the Region (Asia) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
LTEN 158 - Modern American Literature (D)
Lyrical Representations of Insecure Housing
Proposed Instructor: Evelyn Vasquez
Examining literary works from the 20th and 21st centuries, this course explores how poets and songwriters have captured experiences of housing insecurity. Through close readings of works from Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tommy Pico, and Pablo Neruda alongside artists such as Nina Simon and Marvin Gaye, students will analyze how rhythm, metaphor, and form intersect with themes of displacement.
- LTEN 158 will count towards the "D" (U.S. Lit Post-1860) requirement for the Literatures in English major.
- LTEN 158 will count towards the Region (The Americas) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
LTEN 178 - Comparative Ethnic Literature (D)
Introduction to Native/Indigenous Gender and Sexualities
(Cross-listed with ETHN 168)
Proposed Instructor: Manuel Carrion Lira
In this course, you will engage with the most recent literature, debates, and theories available in English that explore the relationship between gender and sexuality and their entanglements with colonialism, settler colonialism, and coloniality. Beginning with decolonial and anticolonial feminist perspective on gender, we will move toward the autonomous and sovereign understandings of gender and sexuality articulated by Native and Indigenous scholars, artists, and activists across the Americas. Together, we will challenge and reimagine our notions of kinship, love, care, and abundance—opening pathways toward Indigenous futures where gender and sexuality are integral to liberatory practices.
Throughout the course, we will work with a wide range of textualities, extending beyond literature and poetry to include music videos, short films, performance, and photography.
- LTEN 178 will count towards the "D" (U.S. Lit Post-1860) requirement for the Literatures in English major.
LTEN 181 - Asian American Literature (D)
Fermented Family: Kinship in Asian American Food Literature
Proposed Instructor: Aimee Jurado
This course will explore the function and formation of family and kinships through a lens of food literature. Through a variety of genres including memoirs, essays, novels, and short films by Asian American authors across the 20th and 21st century, this course asks students to think critically about food, its function in and out of the heteronormative family, and what dynamics the representation of food in literature illuminates.
- LTEN 181 will count towards the "D" (U.S. Lit Post-1860) requirement for the Literatures in English major.
- LTEN 181 will count towards the Region (The Americas) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
LTSP 180 - Film and Visual Arts in Latin America
Mexican Cinema
Proposed Instructor: Jorge Sánchez Cruz
This course covers 20th to 21st century Mexican cinema. From the first motion-picture clips, silent film, the Golden Age, militant cinema, to films about the Mexican Revolution and capitalism, this course will also cover genres such as the documentary form, melodrama, experimental creations, and the thriller. Students will be introduced to film techniques and mediums and the historical contexts where they emerged.
- LTSP 180 will count towards the Language (Spanish) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
LTWL 116 - Adolescent Literature
Young Adult (YA) Lit & Film
Instructor: Nguyen Tan Hoang
The course explores how young adulthood has been conceived and transformed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This quarter's focus is sexual coming of age in the YA novel and the teen movie from 1975 to the present. Our discussions will be informed by scholarship in cultural history, literary studies, trauma studies, film/media studies, and gender and sexuality studies. We will look at genres such as the realist novel, the graphic novel, the historical novel, the short story, along with the teen movie, the horror film, and the rom-com. Topics of discussion may include: didacticism, market demographics, censorship and book banning, intergenerational readership, literary merits, and stylistic experimentation. Books may include Forever (1975), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006), Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (2012), Last Night at the Telegraph Club (2021), and Gordo (2021). Films may include Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Kids (1995), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Jennifer’s Body (2009), Love, Simon (2018), and Euphoria (2019).
LTWL 120 - Popular Literature and Culture
Proposed Instructor: Ying Guo
This course explores how selected Chinese-language cinema document sports and games that have profoundly shaped public memory in the Chinese-speaking world. It examines how athletic performances—whether in public arenas or on virtual screens—have captivated audience at pivotal historical moments. Key examples include the robust cinematic images of Chinese new women, martial arts film that exemplifies the Hong Kong New Wave cinema, and the transnational success of the video game Black Myth Wukong. Organized primarily in chronological order, the course spans from China’s Republican era (1910s-1949) to the booming age of ACG (animation, comics, and games) production today. Our discussions will focus on how superhuman-like bodies on screen contribute to constructing and complicating community identities in the modern Chinese-language world. Through weekly lectures and discussions, students will be informed of a brief introduction to Chinese film history and fundamental concepts of film analysis. No prior knowledge of sports, gaming, or Mandarin is required. This course is created by someone with a playful spirit, for those who share the same curiosity about sports, games, or Chinese cinema.
LTWL 155 - Gender Studies
Food in East Asian Media and Beyond
Proposed Instructor: Wentao Ma
What does it mean to eat? What is our relationship with food? Who or what is responsible for preparing and serving our meals? How do gender dynamics shape culinary practices, whether in the home or at a restaurant? Why does the act of consuming food often evoke sexual desire or awakening?
This course explores these questions by examining the representation and materiality of food in East Asian film, television, and social media through the lenses of gender, sexuality, and desire. We will delve into how gender and sexuality are constructed and expressed through culinary processes and food depictions, starting with a clarification of basic concepts. Topics include food science, “food porn,” food security and justice, commensality, binge-eating, cannibalism, and food waste.
Throughout the course, we will engage with a range of cinematic and media experiences, unpacking the complex messages embedded in each work. Our exploration will feature seminal films and series such as Tampopo (タンポポ), Eat Drink Man Woman (飲食男女), The God of Cookery (食神), Solitary Gourmet (孤独のグルメ), Dumplings (餃子), My Lovely Sam-Soon (내 이름은 김삼순), A Bite of China (舌尖上的中國), as well as Mukbang (먹방) videos and various culinary programs. We will also collaborate with student organizations on campus to help prepare food for local communities and charities as a response to what we have learned in our course.
- LTWL 155 will count towards the Media concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
- LTWL 155 will count towards the Region (Asia) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
LTWR 102C - Poetry Craft
Proposed Instructor: Phuong Vuong
Contact instructor for details.
LTWR 102W - Poetry Workshop
Instructor: Ben Doller
Contact instructor for details.
LTWR 109C - Writing and Publishing Children’s Literature Craft
Myth and Children’s Literature; Writing Adaptations
Proposed Instructor: Makenzie Read
This course is a critical reading and writing journey through mythology adaptations for children. Building upon the simple notion that good reading generates good writing, this course combines a stimulating reading and discussion schedule with traditional workshop methods. The various genres of adaptation we will read will be those that provide a current market survey of Children’s Literature through Ancient Greek mythology. Most of the adaptations we will consider are contemporary. However, the readings of theory and the personal research required for our in-class discussions and writing exercises will stretch your knowledge of “mythology in children’s literature” back to the Victorian Era and perhaps, even, Antiquity; it will also encourage you to transcend the boundaries of Ancient Greek mythology to consider World Mythology. It will be vital to the formation of our summer course community and your success as a creative writer to learn how to read the way writers read, to consider the purposes for which writers address a young audience, and to learn the conscious strategies they employ to support their craft as Children’s Literature writers and adapters. A pedagogical note: This course is designed using a student-centered pedagogy. Thus, you will have a significant degree of freedom in terms of your creative writing projects, topical critical reflections, and research reading.
Summer Session 1 2025 (S125) Global Seminars
The following Global Seminars are being offered. Students must apply and be accepting into the Global Seminars Program to enroll in these courses.
LTAF 120GS - Literature and Film of Modern Africa
Islam and Immigration
Proposed Instructor: Robert Cancel
Course will use film and literature by African artists to examine both the origins and importance of Islam in Africa and Europe and the contemporary movement of African migrants to Europe, especially Spain, and their experiences once they arrive.
- LTAF 120GS will count towards the Media concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
- LTAF 120GS will count towards the Region (Africa) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
LTCS 172GS - Special Topics in Screening Race/Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality
Instructor: Phoebe Bronstein
Contact instructor for details.
- LTCS 172GS will count towards the Media concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
LTEN 128GS - British and Irish Poetry: 1900 to Present
Proposed Instructor: Antony Lyon
Contact instructor for details.
LTSP 123GS - Topics in Modern Spanish Culture
Identity and Culture in Multicultural Spain
Instructor: Ryan M. Bessett
Contact instructor for details.
- LTSP 123GS will count towards the Language (Spanish) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
- LTSP 123GS will count towards the Region (Mediterranean) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
- LTSP 123GS will count towards the Region (Europe) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
LTSP 174GS - Topics in Culture and Politics
Language and Ideologies in Multilingual Spain
Instructor: Ryan M. Bessett
Contact instructor for details.
- LTSP 174GS will count towards the Language (Spanish) concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.
LTWL 180GS - Film Studies and Literature: Film History
Re-Imagining the Spanish Civil War in Film and Literature
Proposed Instructor: Robert Cancel
The course examines the causes, carrying out and aftermath of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). We will read literature/texts by famous writers who reported on and/or took part in the Civil War (Hemingway, Orwell, Malraux). Films will include documentaries about the war as well as the Post-Franco Spanish cinema that was the first art form to break the decades old imposed silence of the ideas and historical facts that had been suppressed by the fascist regime.
- LTWL 180GS will count towards the Media concentration for the World Literature and Culture major.